


The beginning

by Erinlasgalen (PrincessKinny)



Series: In which Luffy is a girl [1]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Canon verse, Coping, Fem!Luffy, Female Monkey D. Luffy, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Law is a bit awkward, Mentioned Portgas D. Ace, Post-Marineford, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25056700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessKinny/pseuds/Erinlasgalen
Summary: He could have anyone from his crew do this, yet here he was, once again, changing the bandages of his troublesome patient himself.  Same routine, different day. Except this time around, she was awake and crying for her dead brother.Law should have never gone to that auction house, Doflamingo or not.
Relationships: Monkey D. Luffy & Trafalgar D. Water Law, Monkey D. Luffy/Trafalgar D. Water Law
Series: In which Luffy is a girl [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1814785
Comments: 20
Kudos: 177





	The beginning

Law clears his throat as he methodically unwraps the pathetic reminder of bandages across Straw Hat’s chest and discards the dirtied and bloodied remains of his careful work from this very morning on the bed. 

His patient is quiet, arms stretched out obediently and head hung low, not even an occasional hiccup escaping her. You’d think it was someone else who had a grade A meltdown mere minutes before in the clearing. A meltdown, Law reminds himself, that resulted in a smashed hole through Polar Tang’s topside, a wreck that used to be a perfectly usable infirmary and quite a large amount of destroyed trees back on the island. 

Her posture is rigid, outstretched arms shaking quite a bit. Straw Hat herself doesn’t quite seem to notice, eyes unfocused and mind a mile away.  Well, at least her body's reaction is somewhat closer to the normal Law is used to. After a trauma like that..both physical and mental, it really is a miracle she can move at all. 

Law huffs out a breath as he drops the last of the ruined bandages on the bed and reaches for the burn cream he had slaved over for a good couple of days.

Just for her.

They are alone in the submarine, not counting Shachi who was busy fixing the damage somewhere above them. The silence is deafening, the air heavy. While Law likes solitude in general, the background noises always keep him grounded to reality, lest he dive into the sea of memories. 

His patient is drowning and he wants to get this over with and never see her again because he just  _ can’t.  _

“I am sorry,” she croaks, effectively breaking the silent barrier, throat raw from all the screaming and crying she did earlier. 

Law chances a look at her, hands freezing above her exposed chest. The dried tear tracks on her cheeks, the midnight circles under her eyes and her mud-caked hair should have made her gaze unappealing and ineffective, yet Law feels goosebumps dance across his skin at the piercing look those charcoal eyes are leveling him with. 

_ Gorgeous... _

“..-for destroying your ship and all the trouble I have caused.”

“You’re forgiven, Straw Hat-ya.”

Forcing his eyes away from her person altogether, Law lowers the medicine on the bed between them and fuzzes over a new batch of bandages, all the while feeling her eyes on him. 

“You..Thank you, for healing me and Jinbe and-”, she vaguely gestures with her right hand and nearly doubles over from pain. However, before she can do a mad-grab at her chest, he catches her wrist in a death grip and stops her movement with a fast hand on her uninjured side, fingers splaying over her petite back and right under the small, tender breast. 

They both freeze. 

Law gulps and reminds himself that he _ is  _ in fact a professional surgeon who has had his fair share of naked patients under his arms and that there is no need to panic. 

Except for the fact that in 100% of the cases those patients are dead to the world and Law can't be bothered to give a _ flying fuck _ about their body parts. And he has never bothered with his patients much unless they were his precious crew. In any case, if there is a re-bandaging to do, most of the time that duty goes to Ikkaku and Penguin or basically anyone else on his crew because all of them have been medically trained by Law himself. He just doesn't bother with such mundane work anymore. Not for a long time anyway.

And yet, here he is on the task of re-applying bandages to his enemy. Just like he has done twice a day for the whole week, not allowing anybody else to touch the pirate girl. 

He didn’t have _ this particular _ problem a week ago when his hands were deep down inside Straw Hat’s own chest, or even this very morning when she was still out of it. 

Back when they were all high on alert and Polar Tang was shaking vehemently, trying to get way from their admiral pursuers and his two critically injured patients needed help right away, the unexpected surprise of, you know, Straw Hat being a _fucking female_ rearranged in his brain not even as a secondary, but a quaternary thought. He had a job to do and gender didn’t matter _then_.

It shouldn’t matter now either! Yet here he is, hand possessively on his patient, his thumb a centimetre away from her tantalizing breast.

Despite her boyish looks, she  _ is  _ quite beautiful.

Why isn’t she stopping him? He is low-key harassing her and she is doing absolutely  _ nothing. _

“Don’t do that, Straw Hat-ya. You’re not healed...yet,” he clears his throat and lets go of her wrist to dip his fingers into the cream. 

_ That’s it, clear the mind, focus on the burn. Nothing more, nothing less,  _ he thinks. His left hand refuses to obey and stays glued to her side.

“You’ll need a minimum of two weeks rest, no exercising at all. The burn itself took quite a chunk of you, but wasn’t as serious as everything else. I don’t know h _ow_ but you had an abnormal excess of adrenaline and your antibody count was over the top,” he rattles on. Best course of action, keep talking. Slowly and surely he starts to apply the medicine to the scorched mess, carefully avoiding potentially triggering eye contact.

“There were also traces of strange chemicals, which I assume your antibodies were fighting off. Complete with exhaustion to the point of passing out, numerous cuts and bruising, three cracked ribs and internal bleeding...well, I’d say you were born in a white shirt.”

“Huh?”

Her cheeks are dusted pink, arms rigid but unmoving from their position at her sides. And she’s staring at him. 

“I-it’s a saying.. from North Blue,” he gulps.

Her mouth forms a small oh.

She  _ still _ hasn’t said or done anything about his blatant groping. He has yet to remove his hand.

The charred edges of the burn reach halfway across her breasts to form a grotesque x-shape. It is morbidly ironic, as it resembles the crossed bones of a jolly roger. He carefully traces the medicine over the edges, fingers moving gently across her breasts. 

A tattooed death dancing over a cross mark. 

A small ‘eep’ escapes her when he accidentally brushes against a delicate nipple and Law jerks his hand back. 

For someone as injured as her, she’s lightning fast in stopping his movement, grabbing his wrist before he can move it away.

“You’re not done yet,” she declares, voice not wavering a bit. Her cheeks are a blazing red and it’s such a contrast to the utter determination in her eyes. She’s dirty and scruffy and crude and she’s _ breathtaking  _ and Law needs to get out of there before his brain swaps places with his awakening brother downstairs! 

Law twitches and lets out a growl. This was unacceptable. With a deep scowl and blatant ignorance of the fact that both of his hands were nearly palming her up, he gives her a critical once over and actually double-takes because there, right under her collarbone burned flesh sat waiting for him to apply the last of the medicine. 

_ This little shit! _

His grip tightens on her out of spite when he hears a small ‘shishishi’ coming out of her. His scowl deepens as he hurriedly finishes his task and slithers off the bed to the sink in the corner to thoroughly wash his hands and get his libido under control.

_ For skin made of rubber, it’s actually soft, _ he muses, already missing the feel of warmth as running water washes the proof of transgression away. 

Unacceptable. 

“Arm’s up!” he barks out as he settles down on the bed once more, already busy unrolling the fresh batch of bandages. She hums in agreement and Law has to remind himself of his position as her  _ doctor  _ and  _ enemy  _ constantly, like a mantra during the process. With their bodies so close and those obsidian's boring into his very soul it’ll take a small miss for him to lose his cool completely. 

But he is better than that. Pirate or not, he will never besmirch her honor and have his way just because of some  _ carnal desires _ that should have been dormant. Especially at a time like this. Straw Hat just seems to push all of the buttons he doesn’t know he has. Doflamingo or not, he should have never gone to that auction house…

He’s on his third round across her torso when she breaks the silence once more. 

“You’re from that time, in Sabaody. We met at the auction, right?”

Law stills his movements and raises his head. 

She peers at him with palpable curiosity. He can count her eyelashes. 

“Trafalgar Law,” he introduces himself. “Captain of the Heart Pirates”

“You’re a Supernova, just like me.”

Law grunts in agreement and continues wrapping her up. Talking, talking was safe. Then he’ll get out of here and hide behind Bepo for the duration of her stay. Yes.

“Your powers are super weird, you know. But you are also really, really cool.”

“Oi!” he hisses, ignoring his treacherous heart that decides to skip a beat at the compliment. “Yours are weirder!” 

He proceeds to stretch and release a patch of skin with an audible snap on her arm to prove his point. 

She simply grins. “I’m Monkey D. Luffy.”

“I know.”

“Back in Impel Down, I lost against Magellan, the warden..-”

“Why are you telling me this, Straw Hat-ya? We aren’t friends. We’re enemies!” 

“You saved my life, that makes you a  _ not-enemy _ in my book, Tura..- Toa..- Torao!” She actually headbutts him with a glare.

Completely ignoring the sting on his forehead, Law’s mouth drops open in mild horror. She did  _ not _ just mess with his name!

“It’s Traflagar L..-”

“Also, at this moment, you’re my doctor, right? Chopper says doctors need to know everything about their patients!”

“Chopper?”

“Our doctor, he’s the coolest reindeer ever!”

_ Reindeer? _

“So you need to pay attention,” she demands. “As I was saying,I lost badly to this poison devil-guy. I would have died if it wasn’t for Bon-chan and Iva-chan. There were no medics, so Iva-chan put some mysterious hormones in me, said they would help my own body battle the poisons.”

That is a lot to unpack. 

“Iva-chan as in, the revolutionary, Ivankov? With the Horu Horu no Mi?” Law carefully asks, eyes widening. 

“Erm, yeah, I think so? I don't know the name of his fruit though. Huge purple afro okama.”

“Luffy-ya,” he asks, keeping his voice clear of any killing intent towards said okama. “You make it sound  _ too simple _ . What happened?”

The girl squirms and he resists the urge to strangle her. 

“Well, I remember it being really really painful, Iva-chan said it was basically tearing my insides all apart and remaking? I don’t really understand it. I think I was tied to something too, to prevent scratching my own eyes out? It’s all fuzzy. Bon-chan said there was like a 100% chance i’d die anyway, even after taking ten-ish years off my life. But I survived. I had to. I had to get to...to A..Ace..-” her voice quivers and dies out. 

Law closes his eyes to collect himself and secures the bandage. 

“Well that explains the antibody army. What about the adrenaline? Were you given another shot of hormones?” he asks casually, as if they were talking about the weather. 

“Yeah, in Marineford, I collapsed. They all wanted me out of the warzone, but I couldn’t! So I begged Iva for something, anything to keep me going.”

_ Idiot, this loyal, possessive idiot… _

“In the end, I couldn’t save A..Ace, he..-”

The first hiccup cracks Law completely as he throws away his _ doctorness _ to oblivion and gathers the girl in his arms, tucking her securely under his chin. 

He sits there, a silent wall of protection as she sobs her heart out for her dead brother, tears and snot wetting his hoodie as she finds comfort in the crook of his neck. 

He sits there, in her nakama’s steed, holding her in a protective embrace against the whole world as she lets her guard down completely.

He sits there, rubbing tentative circles of silent camaraderie as her cries gradually turn to silent sniffles.

“Tell me about him. What was he like?” he asks.

She takes a while to answer, but when she does, what a story it is. His shredded heart goes out to her as his own memories resurface from the abyss he has cast them in.

She tells him of mountain bandits and of ramen and of fighting bears with pipes. She tells him of the boy who wanted to be loved and of the girl who didn’t want to be alone. She tells tales of a third brother and his dreams. She tells him stories of broken promises and declarations of childhood.

“He...always hated Roger. He wanted to be free of his name, live his own life, have his own adventures! Long ago, we both agreed to live fully, without regrets. An..-and now..”

“Straw Hat-ya…” Law pushes her back to look her straight in the eye. “What do you think happened in Marineford?”

He rolls his eyes at the half-hearted glare he gets in return. “Dying, chained up on a platform, without any say in anything is the worst death in my opinion. I’d rather choose when to die. I  _ did  _ make that choice when I was younger, back when I thought I only had a year or so to live.” He swipes a stray bang out of her eyes and absentmindedly tucks it behind her ear, ignoring the fact that the bang springs back and that he is basically cradling her head.

“You freed your brother from that death. He died, doing the one thing he wanted to do. He chose to protect you. He knew he was going to die and he made that choice while being free.”

His thumb catches a stray tear. 

“Believe me, if Akainu succeeded in killing you, your brother would have never been able to live with himself.  _ I know.” _

He doesn’t know if it works, if any words will work, but he tries. She looks like she wants to ask, but she doesn’t. And Law’s glad because he  _ doesn’t want to answer.  _

Instead he traces her jaw, fingers dipping to trace the crescent shaped scar under her eye in idle curiosity. 

And she lets him do as he pleases, again. 

_ She must be a special breed of idiot… _

A distant chatter of voices, slowly growing louder breaks him from his trance and he is out of her personal space and tucked in a corner just as the door bursts open to reveal the blue fishman, half his crew and an admittedly unexpected guest. 

“Rayleigh!”

______________________________________________________________________

They plan to leave the very next day, trading one dangerous island for another. It isn’t like he can stop her. It’s nowhere near his decision. He understands. 

The only reason why he is perched on her bedside, arms folded angrily across his chest and his ever faithful Kikoku on the other side in silent respect for her fallen brother, is because she is still his patient, at least for one more night. His duty is not over yet.

It is nearing dawn when he hears silent curses and awkward shuffling. Straw Hat-ya is awake and trying to sneak around.

_ What is she doing,  _ he wonders, following her groping of the shelves, eyebrow raised. 

“Hat, hat, where are you? Ah! There you are.”

_ Makes sense. At least she doesn’t seem in much pain,  _ he concludes and snaps his eyes closed in pretend sleep just as she whirls around. 

“Okay, one last thing to do,” she whispers, voice way closer than he expects. “I have decided to steal from you, Tarao.”

His finger twitches violently, hidden inside his forearm and he resists the urge to stare her down.

_ Just does this little shit think she is anyway? I’m going to skin her alive if any of Bepo’s sc..- _

His brain freezes as he registers a pair of butterfly lips on his own. 

Cracked and a little dry. Plump and sweet. _ Intoxicating.  _

By the time he unfreezes, she is already gone along with her straw hat. 

“Interesting,” he smirks to himself as he slowly makes way to the deck. “Straw Hat-ya, see you in the New World.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I love LawLu. I read any version of it as long as it's good. Lately I have been reading on female Luffy fics. There aren't that many, especially with decent writing and a decent storyline, without Luffy being a Mary Sue with another DF or something like that. No offence to those writers, it's just not my thing to read. 
> 
> So I decided to write my own fem!Lu, that follows as close to canon as possible. With few exceptions, because, obviously she's a girl. (Like that bathing scene in Alabasta for example). 
> 
> I am planning for this to be..like a collection of drabbles. Certain situations, interactions with the crew etc. Timeline mixed. Like, next work might be syrup village and her bonding with Usopp for all I know. :D  
> Only pairing for Luffy will be Law though. They are cute and I ship it. And this particular fic is very veeeery self-indulgent, leave me be.  
> I̶ ̶n̶e̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶ ̶b̶o̶y̶f̶r̶i̶e̶n̶d̶.
> 
> If anyone wants to talk, [Here's my tumblr](https://erinlasgalen.tumblr.com/)


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